Real Estate App for iPhone
Just took a look at NearBuy, an iPhone application that helps home buyers & renters search homes via iPhone. There are lots of apps out there for home buyers and sellers, but not may that recently debuted to the tune of nearly 20,000 downloads- free, and award winning all at the same time. Did I mention it’s built by four Missouri University students? Yep, all true, and all and all, the app for 3.0 isn’t at all bad. Running off of Google Base, it offers consumers apartment listings, sellers the option of utilizing virtual tours, and agents can simply drop listings into Googlebase from iPhone (or from the web).
For a first time, out of the box shot at a real estate application, I have to say I’m impressed and left wondering about a revenue model- I see many many options in front of them if this application becomes more than a school project.
The bad
In reading some of the reviews of the product, some of the complaints were that it crashed or hung on loading, others were requests for more agent information among other things. The majority of comments were positive, giving plenty of incentive to continue to improve the real estate app.
What I thought was unique was that it pulled Oodle and Craigslist listings but this gave me pause as we all know how unreliable the information can be on both of these sites, as well as the slow updating of Google Base, leaving me to wonder if there might be a better solution in long-term partnership with a larger property portal- we shall see!
